The Thing in The Woods
by Ohyeah100
Summary: When Parvati got to Hogwarts she was almost always busier than she looked. By then the world was at war. Sometimes you can make them love you but you can nearly always make them fear you.


Hey guys. My vehement apologies to those who are waiting for more edits and updates on Welcome to Hogwarts. They are underway and will be here in no time. In the meantime this is a bit of a teaser for a story idea that I have had gnawing at me for years. This post is really more of an intro, the story itself will be comprised of seven chapters. Each chapter will represent a school year and each chapter will be quite long. It comes to some surprising turns and though it is a little out of the way of anything else I have ever written and posted here I'm quite certain it is the story idea I have loved best. For now, I present to you the introduction to _The Thing in The Woods_. Enjoy!

The Thing in The Woods

Parvati was only ten and Padma was only five minutes behind her when she woke up to a blustery, sun dappled sky. The smell of the flower boxes outside her window and of the herb garden that wound and mingled like a fine cross stream in the ocean of grass two stories below her room were heavy upon the early morning air. Spring had come, and while her room was still archly chill Parvati had an instinctual sense that it would burn off to become warm and glorious when the sun had risen. This was good because today she and her sister were going to a party and they hardly ever went to parties. With a leap of heart, Parvati's eyes fastened upon the pink party dress which was hanging from one of the silk padded clothes hangers her mother used only for their dress up things. It was still where she had hung it exactly the night before; by the window next to Padma's blue one.

Today was Draco Malfoy's birthday party and while the Malfoy family name was one she recognized as being sometimes used darkly and more often sternly under the Patil roof, it was still a cause for excitement. Parvati's parents, both working professionals in the wizarding world had immigrated in the years before the birth of herself and her twin sister and as such, between their tight shifts at St. Mungo's and her mothers various charities they kept mostly to themselves. While Parvati had always had a sense of her family's being well respected as they were pure blooded and fairly well off she was rarely offered social opportunities with other young witches and wizards. They knew Pansy Parkinson of course because her father had something to do with fundraising at the hospital and had the double excuse of living nearby. They also Ernie Macmillan whose mother worked with their mother on the weekends but Ernie, Parvati reflected, was round faced and dull and Pansy…well Pansy had a habit of bringing out Parvati's more negative traits. Pansy was a girl who lived not to be undone. Anything Parvati owned or had seen Pansy had done in still some greater measure and always with a snide sidelong look that seemed to say _Oh, you've only just got one?_ Sometimes Parvati wished it was possible never to have a play date with her again and to some degree she suspected she wouldn't ever have to see her if she really didn't way to. If Pansy was snide with Parvati it was nothing to how she treated Padma who Pansy had always seemed to think of a second rate citizen. Padma, whose chief pleasure was in books could have little appeal to Pansy whereas Parvati was loud and wore hair bows and had a habit of getting boys to speak to them. If Parvati didn't want to see Pansy, Pansy would stop coming. Their mothers would cease to have tea once or twice a month and Parvati's life would be even less glamorous then it had been.

Parvati crept out of bed not wishing to wake her sister and winced when her feet hit the cold floor as she padded toward the window. There were few things in her life that offered more incentive to be out of bed early than a party dress and hers was really quite splendid. As she came up to look at it she wondered idly what Pansy would think because of course Pansy would be there. In fact if she was being honest with herself it was probably their friendship with Pansy that had resulted in their being invited at all. Parvati turned when she heard Padma stirring and grinned. Padma did not have her same love of dresses and had hardly spared her own a second look but Padma returned the smile groggily just the same. It wouldn't be their birthday for another month.

A party was a party after all.

0o0

Malfoy manner was beautiful in a way her own home with it's stained glass front windows and cherry wood kitchen was not. It was austere and made of towering and intricate stone, like a long ornate grave marker that stood proudly over it's sprawling rose gardens and hedgerows. Something in it's ceaseless size seemed to promise infinite possibility. Pansy was there of course, on the immaculately manicured lawn near the fountain in the center of the rest of the children. Parvati's father would not stay but many of the parents did seem to be milling about or else lounging casually on the terrace, tied as attentively to their cocktails as to their conversations.

Pansy was not alone however in the gaggle of young school children. She was standing next to a young blonde boy who was leaning somehow haughtily against the fountain, although the effect was rather ruined by the fact that his sleeve hung into the gurgling stream, and even from a glance Parvati could see that Pansy was looking rather superior as though she had once again come into possession of something first that Parvati hadn't thought to want. A vague sense of anxiety crept over her as she took it in and she suddenly felt very alone. Although she had Padma by her side her sister was not one to lead in a place of unfamiliarity. She scanned the gaggle of children and realized that she didn't know any of them and her sense of fear deepened.

Pansy looked up and caught her eye and something in it seemed to sparkle with mockery. She made no to effort to gesture to either of them and Parvati felt herself flush. That was perhaps exactly what she had needed to approach them and she took up Padma's hand and marched across the lawn in defiance. Two or three of the boys turned to look at them as they approached and with a surge of much needed relish she noted that Pansy's eyes swept from her face to her new dress with sidelong envy. "Pansy," she smiled politely and turned to face the blonde boy she assumed must be Draco.

Pansy widened her eyes as though she had only just realized that they had arrived. "Parvati! Im so glad you're here! I was afraid it was just going to be boys!" Something about the way she said it made it sound as though she were expressing a desire and not a regret.

Draco looked at her for a minute, his sneering face carefully bored and he never turned to Padma at all. "Draco, this is my friend Parvati. She lives in our neighborhood." Pansy continued as though this wasn't enough, "She's 's daughter, the head of that ward at St. Mungo's."

Draco raised one eyebrow of finite interest. "Oh yeah, I might have heard father mention him." Pansy was watching his face to see whether this pleased him. "Father makes a lot of donations." Draco added somewhat smugly although Parvati thought she sensed a hint of acceptance that had not been there before. Something about him bothered her however and it wasn't just that his sleeve was still in the fountain which she had only just come to realize was the bathtub-like home of several blossoming waterlilies.

"They work together then," Parvati said flatly, "Your father helps with the charities and _mine_ saves lives."

This time Draco's look wasn't half so lazily disinterested but from the slight furrow of his eyes Parvati judged that he couldn't quite seem to work out whether she had insulted him or not.

Pansy rushed to cover her gaffe. "Have you had your Hogwarts letter yet Parvati? Mine came last week."

Parvati couldn't try to disguise how pleased she was there. "Me too. What house do you think you'll get? Dad hopes we might get Ravenclaw."

Draco sneeringly interjected before Pansy could reply. "Ravenclaw?" He asked scathingly, "I suppose thats fine. I hear it's the house to be in if you want to turn out a completely boring know-it-all." Beside him Pansy let out a high peal of laughter. "Everyone knows the only real house to be in is Slytherin. Although I suppose anything is better than Gryffindor."

Parvati felt the blush in her cheeks like fire. Two or three of the other children tittered in obvious agreement. Parvati didn't know much about the Hogwarts houses but she knew Ravenclaw had a habit of turning out important researchers and writers and that Slytherin was nearly synonymous with high ranking politics and the dark arts. Pansy shot her a filthy, embarrassed look. Parvati steeled herself. "I don't know. I guess," she said defensively, feeling cornered, "but if Slytherin is where you go when you will do anything to win then I think Ravenclaw is where you go if you are smart enough to win the first time around."

Malfoy's grey eyes narrowed at her in honest, sneering disbelief. Pansy was wide eyed with fury. "Oh, your sleeve is in the fountain by the way," Parvati added lightly and as Draco quickly looked down she thought she might have seen his face flush a vague pale pink.

Behind her Padma was looking at her hands, suddenly not so sure she liked parties.

0o0

The woods had a heady quality of dense warmth that day and so did the hedge maze studded with architecture that abutted the forrest to the East. The entrance stood like a mouth facing them, shadowy and portentous. It was Theodore Nott who suggested that they play hide and seek in it and he was not alone in his excitement. Several of the boys seemed to think the idea was brilliant but Pansy hung back looking on doubtfully and handling the material of her surely expensive dress.

"Lets form teams," a dark boy and with almond shaped eyes suggested. He was surprisingly elegant for his age and though he was just as cooly detached as Draco had been he was somehow less offensive about it. Parvati was so busy watching him she almost missed Draco as he swaggered toward them to make teams, leaving Pansy on the sloping lawn looking awkward. In the end she didn't mind at all that she was on the team that would be entering the maze first with Blaise's and that Padma wasn't.

"Just remember," Blaise called before their team took off into the maze, "They have to tag us to win. Go!"

Parvati held the hem of her dress close to her hip as she and her six team mates launched themselves into the complicated web of hedges. A boy behind her pushed her in his haste to get past her and she floundered for a moment before taking the first right. The silence was thick and she could hear her heart in her ears as she ran. Birds were calling from somewhere but the tall trees were blocked by the maze walls. Every time Parvati came to a fork in her path she chose the opposite direction until she was so lost she wouldn't have been able to find herself. Satisfied she hid in the blind spot of a large white statue that seemed to form the arc of a gate in the hedge and waited.

Slowly the thumping in her ears lessened and she started to feel cramped. She looked to the left up the pathway that seemed to pulse with it's emptiness and then right and was surprised when one of the boys she had entered the maze with rounded the corner running pell mell toward her. She braced herself ready to run when something moved out of the corner of her eye and distracted her. She turned and looked through the gate that her statue was made of behind her and jumped. There on an open garden path snaking through rose bushes toward the forest was a little girl. She was honey blonde and starkly white, almost sickly looking, gazing longingly through the gap in the hedges with her large purple lined eyes. Parvati looked back unblinkingly, entranced. A sudden noise on the path behind her made her turn again, feeling slightly dazed and there was Draco Malfoy only inches away from her looking triumphant.

He tagged her so hard her back hit the wall. "Tagged Patil, out of the maze."

Parvati stared back at him unseeingly and Draco squinted at her through narrowed eyes as though checking for mental damage. A large and pointy stick jabbing her back seemed to call her back from her shock. "Where does that path go?" Parvati asked abruptly, turning back to look through the gate. The roses were heavy and luscious but the lane was clear and the little girl was gone, "I just saw someone on it-" The thought of the little girl and her strange sick eyes killed her voice in her chest.

Draco starred on over her shoulder looking put out as though she were robbing him of his victory. "I don't know, the forest?" he suggested snidely, "There is nobody out there."

But even as he said it Parvati began to feel more and more that this was not true. A sudden chill had crept through her and it seemed as though the forest and every shadow of the maze had eyes watching her. Perhaps it was the look on her face that made him uneasy but she felt Malfoy begin to fidget as well. Then much to her horror something whipped through the space in the tree line- something fluid and decidedly inhuman with a whisper soft crack amongst the brambles. She turned to Malfoy who stood transfixed, his face no longer haughty but quivering.

A million thoughts seemed to hit her brain at once like cannon fire; death and fear and that little girl's face alone in the woods with that black quicksilver thing. Then she did something that would haunt her for years. For once she and Malfoy seemed to be as one about something. They ran as fast as their legs would carry them. Malfoy was lithe and and speedier then she was and she might have been running alone if he hadn't tripped over a root turning the corner. Parvati pulled on his robes when she reached him to get him to stand but he pushed her off in a defensive panic and they reached the mouth of the maze at the same time, panting and terror stricken. "Malfoy wait-" She gasped feeling safer now that they could see the rest of the group and beginning to feel shame "The girl!"

Malfoy's face flickered and suddenly the fear was gone and he was cold as winter. He blocked her path to keep her from approaching his milling friends, "What girl?" He said through gulps of air, challengingly, "We didn't see _anything_."

She made to push by him, her courage fading in the face of so much confusion but he turned his shoulders to keep her from sidestepping him. "Don't be a freak Patil," he hissed viciously not meeting her eyes.

Behind him she could see Pansy watching them avidly, her mouth tight and sour.

0o0

Parvati went up to her room that afternoon alone. Padma was reading on the garden swing and she could hear it creaking as it swayed through the open window. She sat on the edge of her bed and drew her feet up to her chest. The smell of lamb curry was wafting up through the eaves from the kitchen and it was reassuring. Normal. The moment they had arrived home Padma had changed out of her dress into shorts and barely spoken to her, abandoning the house for the yard. Parvati wondered if she was angry with her for not paying as much attention to her as she aught to have, playing in the maze and leaving her all alone with Pansy.

Padma didn't speak to her all evening and only when they were in bed with the lights off did she finally speak. Parvati was staring at the wall hollowly when her sister spoke from the opposite bed, quiet and kind. "Did you have a bad time today Parvati?"

Parvati blinked, feeling suddenly wet eyed although she couldn't quite understand why. She thought of the white faced girl beyond the gate. "No. Did you?"

Padma continued to look at the ceiling. "It was fine."

Parvati wiped her eyes mutely. "Im sorry I left you alone so much, I know Pansy can be a handful. Was she absolutely miserable?"

"No, she was kind of quiet actually." Neither of them said anything for a minute and Parvati began to suspect Padma had fallen asleep when she continued, "She did seem pretty surprised to see you coming out of the maze with Draco though. I think it put her off a bit. Did you have fun with him?"

Parvati swallowed around the lump in her throat. "Not really, no."

"Well," said Padma pensively, "at least you annoyed Pansy." With that she rolled over to face the wall and left Parvati to her night visions.

0o0

As always I crave your thoughts and comments! Or even your scorn, hey Im not picky. More to come.


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